In Stars and Time feels like when a director takes their short film they made for school and decides to film additional scenes to turn it into a full feature, ruining it because its really just stretching out an idea that worked well as something brief.

Not that I particularly buy into the idea of a so called "unbiased" review but if you are looking for the perspective of someone who simply stumbled across the game and purchased it on a whim, this account most definitely will not be it. Back in 2021 I played a short game called Start Again, Start Again, Start Again : A prologue and fell in love with it. It was short and sweet, set up a very neat idea of an adventurer stuck in a groundhog day esque timeloop in the final dungeon of an RPG. Its concept was novel, its implementation for the most part smart, the characters were compelling, the LGBT rep was cool and obvious sequel hook aside, I think it worked well as a self contained story.

I liked it so much in fact, that I wrote a walkthrough for it, because none existed at the time I wrote it. It was an interesting experience, and made me respect every guide writer whos services I had benefitted from all these years. I did get a bit sick of the game by the end of it, having had to play essentially the same sequence about 6 times or so to write the guide. How naïve I was, If I thought that that was an overlong amount of runs for the game, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

I loved the game so much in fact it was one of my first reviews on this very site and I even evangelized for it, getting my friend @MagneticBurn to play it and if my delusional ego can take the wheel for a second, I think I might have gotten the ball rolling on the site and now the page for the game is a lot more full of activity, and maybe even some of my mutuals' wishlisting/backlogging of ISAT? or Maybe not, but either way I was anticipating ISAT for a while now. I have definitely learned why I prefer to not do such a thing usually, and just let games drop on me without fanfare or hype of any kind. I think that was part of why I soured on ISAT.

If you have not played Start Again : A Prologue and are wondering if you need to play it to understand In Stars and Time, not only do you not, I would recommend that you do not play it if you are planning to play ISAT. A more appropriate name in hindsight would be Start Again : A Prototype because in the 17 hours I have played of ISAT the first 10 or so played out like a streeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetched out version of STAT:AP.

Sweet fucking merciful mother of mary, this game is way way way way way way way way way way too long for what it is. STAT:P was not a perfect game by any means but none of its flaws had a chance to become glaring in its short snappy package. The not particularly engaging combat? Whatever, the game was 4 hours long. The repetition of dialogue? 4 Hours Long. The writing not always landing the way it probably was intended to? 4Hours.

Its not as if ISAT is JUST STAT:P but stretched, there are some new bits of course, character moments, concepts, a whole ass hub town kinda. In short, it's a game which has expanded upon its original prototype to give a more complete experience, and oh how I wish I could appreciate it but I simply cannot. Clearly the developer has accrued a bunch of experience and the general production value has increased at least twofold, but its all in service of an idea which simply cannot support such an expansion. Its like building an airliner using toothpicks, impressive certainly but you'll have to forgive me for not wanting to get on it.

As much as the new interactions and character quests and all that are nice and well done, most of the game is in service to an appropriately named gameplay loop which is simply beyond tedious after a while. I don't even really want to discuss the mechanics at length but in short, like most timeloop games you will be going through the same areas over and over and over again. Somewhat ameliorated through the use of mechanics to skip forward and not have to redo the whole dungeon all over again, but still the game is not deep or interesting enough to make the repetition not grating. Especially when it seems to begrudge you at times for taking the skip dialogue options it keeps giving you. And that, in short is the issue I have. After 16 hours of the same thing over and over and not ending and not concluding and 3 million ways of saying the same thing I just want the goddamned game to end. And here's the thing, I'm sure at some point I am going to get the "that was the point!" from someone and admittedly I have not finished the game, but I reject this notion.

Spoiler Warning I suppose.

The whole thing in STAT:P which extends to ISAT is the absolute misery that Sif feels at having to relive the same day over and over again and their friends not even being aware of it, having to pretend to feel fine about it and not let them catch on to his existential nightmare. One could argue then, that the overlong nature of ISAT is meant to serve this, through putting the player through a similar experience. I reject this for 2 reasons: 1 in STAT:P a similar thing is achieved much more succintly, just because I agree to something being necessary does not mean you should not show restraint in how its implemented; and the other being that even if it was this point would not be worth making the game an unmerciful slog. Even the points which clearly are meant to at least be compelling on a first time around like the character quests and whatnot were so dampened by having to trudge through a million loops to get there that I didn't even really connect to their emotional cores much.

Anyways, the breaking point for me was getting to Act 4 after what feels like an eternity, trying to look up in the dev's own discord server the next steps in lieu of a walkthrough which does not currently exist (and Im definitely NOT going to be the one writing it this time) and seeing "act 6 spoilers" and my heart sank. NO, I'm sorry but get fucked. I will look up the ending on youtube whenever someone uploads a walkthrough, I am done. And I feel sad about it, I had looked forward to this game, I thought I would at the very least sort of like it. Clearly it has had a positive reception and I wish I could join the positive consensus but this game makes me miserable.

I'd been following the development of this game for a while, really excited by its premise and art style. Although the proof of concept for this game, START AGAIN: a prologue, didn't do much for me, I was really excited to see what the full game would deliver. And wow, does In Stars and Time deliver.

Time loops, specifically Groundhog Day time loops, are one of my favourite story devices. ISAT explores an aspect of these kinds of time loops most stories take for granted, though: the nihilistic disregard for others. ISAT is carried by excellent writing and an endearing cast, and Siffrin's slow descent into madness and apathy form a central part of his development which got me invested. He struggles hard with refusing to give into apathy which is a take we don't get to see often. Anything more would be spoilers!

ISAT has the honour of sitting among the few games that made me cry. If you can put up with repeating the same gameplay segments, you owe it to yourself to try this one out.

This will be so many people's favorite game of all time. It's not mine, and I may have my issues, but I write this because I absolutely wanna celebrate games that have such unbelievably good production, such interesting and rich worlds, characters with expansive perspectives, such beautiful diversity and take something that has already been a staple of several amazing games over the past few years and just experiment with it further and further to see the way players react. It didn't perfectly click with me, but if it does with someone, HOOOOOLY I can't imagine that feeling. It's so rare that games with such incredible production try and reach further than they maybe can, than they maybe should, and not play it safe, and I think even this game maybe goes a bit safe at specific points, but it GOES for it otherwise. It's just such a rare thing to take something that works perfectly well and decide to risk it all. Just, fuck yeah, video games.

In Stars and Time is a unique story-based RPG-maker RPG that I am glad I was made aware of. This type of game is right up my alley and I very much enjoyed my time with this, learning more about the excellently written and designed characters and the world.

Besides being an RPG, if such a genre for games existed I would categorize this as a mystery, as learning why the main character, Siffrin, is looping in time, by gathering information around the game's small world is required for progression, and at times it can be quite confusing. The game is divided into acts, with major story points separating each. By the end of the game you will have "looped" dozens of times, and while going back through the same areas does get tedious after awhile, this is both (1) intentional as a method of storytelling (understanding what the main character is going through and becoming increasingly frustrated and hopeless as they are) and (2) done in a way that I believe respects your time as much as possible. Through the use of a pretty easily acquirable resource, you can loop not only back but forwards in time as well, taking you to the save point you choose that had the highest level you ever had had when previous saving there.

I was honestly pretty impressed by the combat, it’s a very simple weapon triangle turn-based system that manages to be deep enough to have some respectable difficulty in the first few loops when you are initially beating the game’s main content for the first time. As you grow stronger and you go through the acts, the combat ends up becoming a breeze, and so luckily you don’t have to really beat anything when it’s very difficult more than a couple times.

The main draw of this game is the main cast of characters, who I all learned to love pretty quickly. Siffrin does as well, and you understand each of the party members through his eyes, for better or for worse over time. I really loved the way that the perspective of Siffrin was so essential to the way the story was told, as you are going through the frustration of the loops right along-side him, questioning things and seeing character development of his friends through the same couple days just as he is. This is all implemented quite well and I can say that I really do love each of the characters in the game in different ways.

There are unfortunately a few plot threads that I felt did not get resolved in an entirely satisfying way by the end of the game, and mostly end up serving as mysterious sub-plot, when I was hoping we would get actual answers. It’s also very easy to miss very important information, and as I said previously it is very easy to get completely lost on how to progress at all. I still very much enjoyed my experience with this game and I would absolutely recommend it to anyone that feels this subject matter and style of game checks any boxes for them. I really do hope it gets more attention, as it I think it deserves to sit alongside many of the great indie RPG maker classics of the past decade or two.

8/10

A greatly flawed experience that I nearly dropped on several occasions, the definition of pure Backtracking and tedious as hell to push through on account of everything happening in the same environment with narrow corridors and enemies that respawn as soon as you leave and re-enter an area. As an RPG ISAT sucks ass but as a time looping story in an RPG frame it's quite good. The main group is easy to love and the worldbuilding makes me want to see more stories set in it and not even necessarily with the same protagonists or stakes. The psychological breakdowns experienced by Siffrin, the protag, became harder to experience as the loops grew in number and as everything fell apart the game itself went from a tentative 2 and-a-half stars to a solid 3. I remember after playing the prototype feeling that the story worked best as a short experience and I still feel that way after 30 more hours of that same story but more fleshed out. I loved learning more about Siffrin's companions, about elements of the world such as the missing country, the loss of colors, how this world's people used Crafting in their day-to-day. I did not love fighting the same 7 enemies through the same three floors of the same castle. I know everyone likes to say that any RPG made in RPG Maker is doomed to have basic as hell turn-based gameplay but as someone who grew up obsessed with amateur RPG's made in the engine I can tell you now that, that is bullshit.

Enemies could have a timer to determine when they respawn giving the player some breathing room to backtrack especially in the early game and giving the handful of enemy types different AI and gimmicks to keep fights from being samey would have made the first few Acts more interesting (and this is very possible to do in even the base version of RPG Maker MV with some clever use of events). ISAT DOES use a Jackpot mechanic that introduces some degree of strategy soooo there's that but that's really the most interesting thing the game has going on in terms of battles.

I know the repetition is all in service of having the player share in Siffrin's exhaustion and gradually depleting sanity as they go through the loops but at the end of the day I will always feel that there should be some consideration put into game feel since, well, this is a game and not a book.

The last two Acts saved the game for me since I was getting well and tired of the gameplay loop (ayyyyyy) by that point despite finding myself engrossed in the character interactions and background mysteries and the shaking up of the formula kept me going to the finish line.

tldr; an interesting character story masquerading as an RPG, play the demo to get a feel for the writing at least OR alternatively the prototype but buy on sale.

(my review for the prototype)
https://www.backloggd.com/u/owlpunki/review/808002/

Takes a while to get going, maybe even too long.
But once it has gotten going it really just doesn't stop.

It's a bit difficult to talk about without spoiling anything (and I don't wanna write a spoiler tagged review either because I don't feel like I actually have that much to say about it) but this game hit me really hard at an emotional spot that I have been incredibly vulnerable at for the past year or so.
And then the ending was just incredibly carthatic.

Of course, a game hitting me this close to something so personal to me, while making it a game I deeply care about, also makes it a bit more tricky to recommend. What if other people feel differently about this?
But also I feel like even though the game feels incredibly personal to me, it is actually about a fairly universal feeling. Now that I think about it, that might actually be what the game is about.

I'm always wary of western indie devs inspired by classic jrpgs--they usually miss what was actually fun about those games and opt for some awful mix of mechanics done better in those old games glossed over with some pretty paint. So, I went into In Stars and Time with a bit of a prejudice.

And...it was pretty good! For one, this game borrows its core from the classic rpgmaker game on dlsite--the rpg mechanics here are threadbare and function more as a narrative tool than "something you play", and the narrative thrust is all about the main character Siffrin delving deeper and deeper into every time loop, trying to find how to beat King.

My other worry coming into the game was that it'd be too...wholesome and twee? I was on tumblr in the 2010s, I've seen this art style acutely, the sort of overly-cute "lets hold hands and talk about our feelings and everything will be okay" sort of thing was completely endemic, and this game sort of has it but its not like, annoying about it?

In fact, its actually quite a delight learning more about how that sort of ethos is presented as worldbuilding. See, basically every single object in the game has copious amounts of flavor text if you interact with them--like, obscene amounts. You very quickly learn the interior lives of every person you meet, every little belief or habit of everyone and the world around you, in near-excrutiating detail. At first, I thought this was just a bit of narrative flourish--but then I beat the final boss the first time, the time loop nature became clearly apparent, and I understood.

See, this game really sells you on the tedium. You will likely go through "the game" 30 to 40 times over the course of the game, and all that flavor text adds up. You will get to the end of one run to see something new, learn oops you fucked up and forgot the random doodad you couldn't know you needed back at the beginning of the game, then loop back go through all that fucking dialogue(which yes has a skip feature for some of it), get the doodad, go back again before finding more shit you didn't know you needed. You start optimizing your runs--dodge the corner here so you can bait the random trash mob into walking in the other direction to skip that encounter, interact with only the few objects you need to continue progressing, skip over that room you don't technically need to, take the left-hand path around an atrium so your barrier maiden doesn't see her friend dead, keep going...it'll still take 20-30 minutes to go from beginning to end, but its faster.

it's all to wonderful effect. You are stuck in this loop too, watching the same shit happen again and again, its incredibly tedious to go through and makes you as a player mimic Siffrin's decent. But, it works, and I love it for it--because the game is well-paced and in spite of the repetition, there is always narrative thrust, always one more thing to investigate, or a new line you somehow missed before that makes it all never feel dull. I genuinely think adding more qol, more ways to skip past the uninteresting parts would hinder this game and it's impact.

Of course, it all wouldn't work if it was in service of an uninteresting narrative--which it definitely doesn't have. The game I think I compare it the most to is perhaps Disco Elysium--there's a similar conceit at play, whereas Revechol is initially presented as a pretty normal pastiche of east europe in that game, and all the weird fucky worldbuilding slowly creeps up and takes over the setting there, its similar for this--the game presents itself as a cutesy maou/yuusha story, and its only through repeated loops and investigation do you see how weird the world actually is. And, in perfect time loop tradition, it brings it all back home in the finale--it won't surprise you if you've read any number of past time loop stories, but the execution is quite good.

Altogether, a good time that I don't regret at all.

2 hours worth of content stretched out to 20. An extremely repetitive game that tries to make itself seem more interesting than it is.

Builds an intriguing world and only focuses on the most boring aspects of it. Walking down the same 6 hallways and interacting with the same rooms over and over and over and over again makes for an unsatisfying game experience.

The time loop makes for a good premise but Siffrin is afraid of changing too much so each loop plays out almost exactly the same with very little variance.

The characters are a lot of fun and are really memorable though, and interacting with them was enough for me to want to put up with the rest of the game.

I'm just at a loss for words after finishing this game. This is up there with some of the best games of this year, if not decade, IF NOT ALL TIME if i dare go that far

Like i cant even put words in this box this game has me stunned silent. For vagueness sake, the art is superb the Town you start in and House you explore are simple yet hold secrets you will miss after a couple look overs. The characters are the highlight, I love every last one of them. The interactions are hilarious at some parts and thought provoking at others, these are truly 3-dimensional characters done well. Gameplay wise I hold no complaints, loved the explorations and especially the puzzles sewn into the environment, combat is serviceable and gets its job done without being that much of a pain. Story is phenomenal full stop wont say anything else i loved it after I got hooked it was over and I binged until I got sleepy.

This is a serious must play to any rpg fan or even if you just love a good story

I’ve always been a fan of games that, rather than prioritizing being “gamey” at all times or even necessarily “fun”, use their interactive medium to their advantage to tell stories and convey things in a manner that would be impossible in any other format. Your 13 Sentinels, your Undertales, your OneShots. In Stars and Time is one of the most incredible, accomplished examples of this I have ever seen. What starts off as a relatively normal-seeming RPG with time loop mechanics twists and turns into something that can only be described as a facsimile of RPGs, ostensibly traditional on the surface but as you progress further and further reveals itself as something else entirely.

As is known, In Stars and Time is about a time loop. About your wily hero being stuck there, being slowly whittled down by the repetitiveness, the tedium, the same battles and dialogue and interactions with the people you love over and over and over, eroding his sanity, slowly. And the game does NOT pull its punches for the player - there are quality of life features like looping to specific places, but Time and Time again you will find yourself experiencing the exact same agony as Siffrin. Constantly I found myself complaining about having to do yet another tour of the game’s singular location, only to catch myself realizing I was behaving exactly like him. It was the intended reaction, and they pulled it out of me unknowingly dozens of times across this 30 hour agony. It is not a “fun” game, most of the time, but ive never played anything that’s made me feel like it. And that is such a fucking risky thing to make, a game so deliberately boring and cyclical and mundane, all with the intent of furthering your narrative. It is not for everyone, definitely not, but if you can stomach going through it all over and over and over and over again then this game will resonate with you.

And yet, even with the framing of its plot, even with how much they just say the same thing all the time, the cast of characters in this game have become one of my favorites in any video game. They are simply just… phenomenally written. You never want to stop being around them, just like Siffrin doesn’t. And the game taking place at the end of a long arduous quest similar to something like Frieren allows for so much to be learned about them throughout the game by you rather than their development being spread throughout it like that - they’ve already grown to this point without your input. Though the series of sidequests in the midgame focused on them, acting as conclusions for their arcs you never entirely saw, are some of my new favorite moments in games ever. Cried at every single one of them….

My mind is still racing, I am sure there’s so more I could say about this thing, but I am not even sure what right now. But it is a truly truly special experience like nothing else out there, not even the inspirations it wears proudly on its sleeve. It might be too cryptic and tedious to reach the fame of something like Undertale but I hope more and more people can find it and it resonates with them as much as it did me. Make sure to regularly use the coin on the tree.

In this moment, you are loved.

In Stars and Time is a rare experience where the credits roll and you sit in your chair staring at the ceiling for 10 minutes. I'm torn because there are a lot of things that would typically turn me off from a game here, and it's in no way a completely 'fun' game. Viewing this purely as a video game, sure, it's not that great. There's a LOT of backtracking and inconveniences to the gameplay that I'd rather have not been there. But as an entire experience? This is something really fucking special. If not for the fact that Act 3 is REALLY repetitive without adding as much narrative weight as the others, this would be a 10/10 experience, but sacrificing some fun for the overall experience does make a 10+ hour game lag a little in some areas.

I really recommend that people give this one a shot, because this kind of game only comes around every so often

...this was recommended late last year by IGN's Rebekah Valentine on the Axe of the Blood God podcast. Me being the sucker for time loop games that I am, I simply had to take a look at it.

Pros:
+ makes the most of its Game Maker origins
+ monochrome art style is unique and memorable
+ rock-paper-scissors combat system is easy to learn
+ enemy designs are memorable and change over time
+ optional equipment heavily affects the combat tactics
+ time loop mechanic is implemented mostly hassle-free
+ some of the music themes are really good
+ the characters are engaging and grow on you
+ different playstyles lead to differing story paths
+ gameplay and storytelling get closely intertwined towards the end
+ the story does become more intriguing as it goes on...

Cons:
- ...but lacks subtext, and any ambiguity is smothered by the verbose writing style
- even meaningless objects get two screens of meaningless text
- text font and animation shenanigans feel juvenile
- 4:3 aspect ratio feels weird...
- ...and the painted bezels impact the quiter, darker moments
- even at the fastest setting, dialog still requires constant button inputs..
- ...and are frequently interrupted by meaningless dialog options
- culture war aspects are too obvious and blatant for my taste
- combat can only be skipped after it has started
- the reasons for further loops get really flimsy towards the end
- requirements for progress are not always clearly indicated
- even with an optional item, the final fight seriously drags
- playing for longer leads to serious, repeatable visual glitches
- the internal gametime clock continues when the Switch is on standby

Playtime: 18 hours, with a lot of optional content and dialog explored, but still a lot of paths untaken. A complete playthrough requires at least two playthroughs as far as I know.

Magic Moment: Meeting Loop for the first time. Winning the last fight and not knowing where it would lead to.

Blagic Moment: Searching for specific documents in the castle without being given clear instructions where they are. Using an optional item against the final boss and seeing it land like a dud.

Favorite Character: My girl Mirabelle. Please never grow up.

Verdict:
It's clear that In Stars and Time was created with great care and an eye for character and storytelling. However, with the creative team clearly being influenced by games like Earthbound, they somehow refused to implement the anti-frustration features of those games. Avoiding combat is tedious, the later loops send you back to the beginning for miniscule reasons, and having to fight enemies to loop forward in time is a deliberate but time-consuming design decision that really becomes a problem the longer the game goes on. The writing was also really not my style, but your milage may very much vary on that. Still, the technical aspects are troubling, and the gamebreaking glitches during longer play sessions are verboten for a finished product.

I believe this would have worked better as a straight visual novel instead, and if you are a fan of those, In Stars and Time could well be worth your time. Fans of RPGs however will not find much to enjoy here.

But then again...

A heartfelt story about identity and belonging with an immediately lovable found family cast.

Time loops aren't exactly a novel theme for games anymore, but ISAT still surprised me several times with its take on it and how it integrates the whole thing in its gameplay. The permutations that the time loop introduces to the classic command based RPG formula are genuinely impressive, especially considering this is an RPG maker game, and add variety and depth to what looks like a fairly straightforward adventure at first. You'll have to juggle elements such as being able to travel backwards /and forward/ and time, specific save points recording the current state of your party (including every member's level as well as your inventory at the time), a time travel currency that allows you to travel back or forward to specific floors of the main dungeon, with the option of selecting the version of it that has all normally locked doors opened, etc. And that's without mentioning the clever and sometimes harrowing ways time traveling is addressed in the story proper. It's brilliant stuff all around.

The premise itself is quite novel too. You're Siffrin, a mysterious, wandering rogue traveling with a party of heroes accompanying a chosen heroine tasked with defeating a villain that's been freezing the population in time. You're at the end of their journey, starting the day before the final confrontation, and the party has been traveling and getting closer to one another for some time now, so the group dynamic is already established, but all of them have their own struggles and secrets, which makes it so you'll continue unraveling new things about them as well as helping Siffrin break out of their own shell.

The cast is also racially diverse and predominantly (completely?) queer, which makes the found family aspect of the group hit all the harder. My favorite character was Odile, a japanese old lady (this is a fantasy world, but the story clearly takes place in fantasy France and a couple other real world countries are referenced as well) that's the defacto mom of the group. Always sarcastic and a bit jaded, but she'll never hesitate to put her life before the rest's at a moment's notice.

The combat uses ATB and a rock, paper, scissors system that's deceptively versatile and fun, and the dynamic character portraits you see at all times during battle help add further characterization to an already fairly charming cast.

The game does get a bit tedious and repetitive after a certain point, but never by accident, if that makes sense (your mileage may vary on how good of a justification the game's themes will be for that). It worked for me, personally, and honestly, my one gripe with the game would be that it allows you to ignore the critical path at almost all times, but exploring can often be a waste of time because some elements that will become important in further loops have no use before their respective story triggers come into play.

All in all, though, I thought the game was wonderful. It's clearly very inspired by Undertale, but it tackles very different topics, and those it shares with it are handled surprisingly differently. It has one of the most lovable casts I've seen in game in years too. Can't recommend it enough.

(This is a rewrite of my first ever review on Backloggd! For posterity’s sake I’ll leave up that review here, but I don’t love it and I’m writing this review as an improvement on what I wanted to say back then.)

━━━━━━━━━

Before I played In Stars and Time in November of 2023, I played the proof-of-concept version, START AGAIN: a prologue a whole year and a half earlier, in April of 2022. I usually don’t play demos, especially not paid demos, but I’d been following this project based on the art style and I felt like it was something special. I liked the prologue well enough. It was charming and I was drawn to the characters. The prologue starts in medias res as the party prepare to defeat the “final boss”, the King, at the end of their JRPG journey. The catch is that the protagonist, Siffrin, is stuck in a time loop and nobody else in the party is aware. Despite this, Siffrin resolves to carry this burden alone, and to use this ability to defeat the King without worrying his allies.

My one big issue with this demo was that, although I liked him as a character, Siffrin’s decision to bottle up his feelings and keep the time loop a secret made no sense to me. It seemed contrived that he wouldn’t, even once, experiment with the time loop and tell his allies about what was going on. If it caused any issues, it wouldn’t matter – he could just loop back and START AGAIN. After the demo, I was a little disappointed but still hopeful the full release could turn my opinion around.



As the full release approached, I grew really excited. I’d been following the dev’s monthly dev logs on Steam up to release, and I bought the full game in the first week after it came out, a rare event for me. I finished it in 6 days, binging it between study sessions for my upcoming exams. I was hooked, and by the end of the game, In Stars and Time had fully recontextualized the demo.

Siffrin didn’t tell his party about the time loop because he loves them. He didn’t tell them because he refuses to be vulnerable.

When I played the demo I saw these characters from my omniscient point of view as the player, as little pawns to command in whatever way would progress the plot. Siffrin’s refusal to open up felt like an arbitrary obstacle put in place by the creator as if to say “but then we wouldn’t have a plot, would we?” But Siffrin isn’t the player, and he isn’t aware he exists in a video game. To him, the rest of the party aren’t pawns; they’re his allies. His friends. His family.

What’s more, Siffrin is incredibly repressed. He’s reserved, happy to nod along in the background because he believes that placing himself as the centre of attention will lead everyone to hate him as much as he hates himself. He sees himself as inherently less valuable than others, and takes the time loop to be his chance to martyr himself in service of his family.

I’m reminded of Jacob Geller’s video Time Loop Nihlism, wherein he talks about Deathloop and the way replaying a game desensitizes us. The more we play, the more we’re able to abstract NPCs from living, breathing people into gameplay systems. Our immersion fades with each repeat as cause and effect become predictable. This was the mindset I had playing the demo.

In Stars and Time actively subverts this idea. Siffrin refuses to allow nihilism to overtake him. Sure, if anything happened to a family member, he could reset the timeline and fix it. But in that moment, in that present moment, his family would suffer, and that suffering would be real. For the same reason we wouldn’t kill a person even though they’ll die sometime in the future anyways, Siffrin won’t let his family come to harm even though he can reset the harm they suffer. The time loop is his burden and his alone, and he will do everything in his power to allow his family to be happy for as long as he can.

In Stars and Time is repetitive. You will repeat the same dungeon over and over for the game’s entire runtime. You will fight the same enemies over and over. The same bosses. Siffrin’s family will repeat the same dialogue again and again. You will find the same items scattered throughout the dungeon. You will walk between the same rooms in the same layout looking for the same keys to progress. There are plenty of quality-of-life features to reduce frustration; you can loop to specific areas in the dungeon after dying, you can skip seen dialogue, and Siffrin retains levels between every loop while his family retain their levels at checkpoints within the dungeon. But, no matter what, you will repeat the same events over and over. You will be sent back and forth, and at several points you will progress to a certain point in the dungeon only to realize you had to do something in a now blocked-off area, forcing another reset. The ludonarrative is excellent and encourages the player to experience Siffrin’s frustrations alongside him.

This is why Siffrin’s character arc is so compelling. The whole game, he does his best to protect, long past the point the player has. Every so often he’ll make a major breakthrough, and his enthusiasm is extreme. This is it! He’s figured it out! That enthusiasm soon fades as his plans inevitably lead to more and more dead ends. Even Siffrin has his breaking point, and his growing disillusionment with the repetition, the monotony, makes him a fascinating tragic protagonist. I won’t say much because of spoilers, but the toll the time loop takes on his mental health, compounded with his poor self-esteem and inability to show vulnerability, make Siffrin an amazing and relatable protagonist.

I could praise everything about this game if I wanted to, but I chose to focus on Siffrin because his characterization is central to what makes In Stars and Time so engaging. I love its characters, its world-building, its music, its everything. Please, if what I’ve written above is at all interesting and you can stomach the repetition, you owe it to yourself to play In Stars and Time.

In Stars and Time’s seemingly about a group of adventurers on their final quest to defeat an evil king on top of his tower. But really it’s about the protagonist Siffrin, who after quickly dying on their way to the top realizes they can somehow loop back to the previous day with their memories and experience intact

Initially this works to their benefit, being able to keep the party from failing by returning each loop with the knowledge needed to advance. And eventually they actually succeed and defeat the king, seemingly saving everyone in the process and completing their goal. But when it seems like the game’s about to end here, the loop still happens inexplicably and brings Siffrin back to the start anyway. With no knowledge on how to break it or any idea why it’s even happening, they’re now forced to repeat the same thing over and over again

What stood out most about this game to me was how committed it was to being… repetitive. Siffrin (and by extension the player) will redo this loop, fight the same enemies, run through the same floors, mostly read the same dialogue, backtracking to the same rooms, searching for anything different to try and stop it, for hours on end. There are some things that make the loops less annoying, like being able to jump to different floors after dying or retaining memories for your party, but that’s basically the gist of it. Though as tedious as that obviously sounds, something about that structure still kept me glued to it all the way to the end

I guess it was the way it’s used narratively and how it affects the characters. Siffrin was compelling to play as and you’ll watch as their sanity gradually unravels with each loop from the constant monotony of it all. I liked that you’re basically sharing their struggle the longer you keep playing in a meta sort of way, they’ll get frustrated with it and so will you. The others, Mirabelle, Isabeau, Odile, and Bonnie, are all good as well. While you do spend much time reading their same dialogue over and over (mercifully can zone out and skip it at least), was sweet to see how much they bond with each other throughout and make up the game’s more emotional core

The turn based combat was… alright. Bit too simple, but I liked that it was based on Rock Paper Scissors with the enemy designs actually having one of the signs to show which they were weak to. But really I’d definitely say the appeal for this is in the story than the gameplay, past a certain point you’ll wish you can just ignore or skip past most fights

I do think this is a well made game, but also one that’s (albeit intentionally) frustrating to play. It is pretty long for what it is at about 20 hours for me, and you have to meet it halfway to click with the story it’s trying to tell. But I think it worked for me by the end and appreciate what it went for, even if I doubt it’ll be for everyone

I'm too emotional right now. Maybe I'll write extended thoughts some other time but man. I've never really gotten into Time Loop stories before, but this one absolutely hooked me. Gameplay does get a little bit stale around the halfway point but everything comes together in the end. I get the feeling that this score might increase over time.

Overall: I fucking love the funny "Quirky Indie RPG" genre. Give me like 20 more of them or something I don't care

EDIT: I changed my mind already. It's getting 5 stars.

It’s been almost two months since I’ve finished this game, and I’m still thinking about it. I’ve written and rewritten this review several times since then, trying to explain how a game that wears its flaws on its sleeve ended up as my game of the year. Because in all honesty, this should not work as well as it does in practice. This is a game about the most tedious parts of a RPG and uses them to drag you into the shoes of a character going through a depression spiral. It uses its time loop narrative to numb you, the boss battles whose gimmicks you figured out hours ago to bore you, and a slow drip feed of information to keep you going. Maybe this is the run! Maybe this time something different will happen! After all, three acts is a typical story structure—

But as much as this game clicked for me and refuses to leave my brain, I think the main reason that it did work for me was because I came into this already invested in these characters and wanting to know more about their world and their story. This leads to the hottest take I have about this game: the prologue version serves as a better introduction because we’re thrown right into the middle of things and have to piece together the context for ourselves. If I’d been introduced to this story through the slow opening of the final town, I’m not sure if I would’ve been as immediately invested or charmed as I was through the mystery of the prologue version. And thanks to extremely late game reveals (if you know, you know), I think that prologue should’ve made it into the main game. It’s a good litmus test to see if this will work for you, because if it does? The storytelling in this game will hit you like a bus.

That personal investment got me through a chunk in the middle where I just could not parse what the game wanted from me. I spent more than a few hours stuck on a hint, and after not getting it through several runs, I had to look at someone else’s playthrough to continue the story. A section of the finale had some dialogue in a room that I never went to in any of my loops (but I recognized the text from the prologue, so it was fine). Audio cues from battles would load strangely on my Switch (although I’m not sure if this is RPG Maker’s fault or not).

This is all to say that the game isn’t without flaws. But, I think it’s fascinating when game mechanics are used in service of a story instead of the other way around. In Stars and Time is definitely One Of Those, where the mechanics - the time looping, the boss fights, the battle system, the equipment, etc. - are not the point so much as how those things make you, the player, feel as the story unwinds itself in front of you. As a result, how much you, the player again, are willing to put up with these mechanics directly correlates into how much you personally care about the story, its characters, and its world.

Even with the parts that frustrated me, all of it was worth it for that ending, and for the story that has remained in my mind since I finished it. The character writing is amazing, the worldbuilding is incredible, and the mystery at the center of this time loop had me thinking about this game even when I wasn't playing it. I loved this game, and anyone with any level of interest in it should at least give it a try. Play the prologue first if you’re curious about it and then move on to the full game. I hope it grabs you by the heart the way that it did with me.

A story that's all about the emotional connection with the main character and his companions. It's overall done pretty well and you go on a lot of ups, downs, happy and sad moments that all work well together to form the narrative.

The actual gameplay itself is where it suffers. The concept is a loop and exploring the same things gets a bit annoying since some of it feels like just padding. Up to the third floor then welp back to the first floor then got to go back to the third floor but then back to the 2nd. This wouldn't be so bad except to move quickly between floors requires a currency that you get by killing enemies, so you're forced to kill enemies unless you want to walk your way back to where you want each loop.

Plus the combat itself isn't really engaging to begin with but just gets easier as the game goes on and ultimately serves little purpose after a certain point, the game does eventually give you a way to cause enemies to run though.

But the character writing is very good and the way each character feels unique but exaggerated is nice and it has a nice emotional punch if you can handle the more sloggy portions of the game. Game takes about 20ish hours to get through but can vary a bit depending on how much combat you end up doing.

Ok I'm gonna be writing a bit about this but just gonna preface it with I think the game was extremely obnoxious with how it handled being a Ludonarrative. But I do want to clarify with this that yeah the story is pretty good imo.

Starting with the characters I think they're good. You constantly get to learn about Siffrin without the game telling you outright what he's like at the start and that is awesome! I think every1 is written in a fun way!

I will not go deep into story bcus yeah just in case idk whos gonna play it but there's that. But gameplay? Dude the gameplay? I love exploring the same 3 floor dungeon for hours. For so many hours. Yes. Its a time loop. I got exactly what I should've expected But like, Yeah? I guess I did but did I have fun scrambling back and forth for all those hours? No? Wow just like siffrin haha you see its a ludonarrative because I am suffering like siffrin haha. Having to see the same 3 floors over and over and over and over and over again

They try? To mix it up in act 3? They try kind of? But it does literally nothing? You start seeing enemies from floor 3 in floor 1 and its like "Oh cool I guess enemies will be stronger from now on I wonder what new enemies I am going to see in future floors" and it turns out that no not really its just randomizing where enemies show up thats cool. Its meaningless though. Nothing changed. Its still just enemies that I have to hit and kill in 2 actions. So if that can change though, why not change literally anything else? Anything at all?

This is what I mean by the ludonarrative is too much. It just overpowers everything else. Act 5 changes layout a bit yeah but it just. Sucks. Act 5 sucks. Other than the ending. I think the ending is really good. Im free. Siffrin is free. At least it gives us both catharsis from it all

But overall? I had a good time with the story yeah. But. Yeah I wrote what I did not like. I can't recommend anyone to play it in good faith. If you can accept a ludonarrative as overpowering as this then yeah, play it, you'd probably enjoy it. If not then probably don't play it.